Steve Israel: Shouldn't we ask our leaders to work hard?

JFK had it wrong when he proclaimed, "Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."

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Posted Feb. 1, 2013 at 2:00 AM

Posted Feb. 1, 2013 at 2:00 AM

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JFK had it wrong when he proclaimed, "Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."

Why shouldn't we ask what our country — or, more specifically, its leaders — can do for us?

Aren't we the country?

Don't our leaders work for us?

We hire them by voting them into office. We pay their salaries with our taxes. And if enough of us don't like the job they're doing, we vote them out.

So shouldn't the government — our government — do what we want it to do, rather than telling us what to do?

And why shouldn't we ask our leaders, who run this country, to work hard for us?

That's why, on the eve of President Obama's inauguration, we asked folks in Ulster, Orange and Sullivan counties what they wanted Obama to do for them over the next four years.

And despite the fact that many of you — and some of my colleagues — said it was a selfish question, especially compared to JFK's eloquent phrase, there is nothing selfish about their requests.

Think about it.

When Middletown's Kevin Barry, who pays $60,000 per year to send two daughters to college, asked that something be done to lower the cost of higher education, he could have been speaking for all of us. After all, costs like that mean fewer kids can afford top colleges. And that means we all suffer. As Barry so eloquently put it: "If we want to be the country that's No. 1 one in math, in science, in education, then we've got to be able to let our children get the best education possible."

When Ellenville's Maria Salas, who owns two restaurants in Ellenville and Rhinebeck, said she wants Obama to make it easier for small business owners like her to get loans to expand, she specifically mentioned that would create more jobs. Wouldn't those jobs benefit all of us? Instead of receiving unemployment benefits from our taxes, men and women could be earning money and spending it — in the stores we own, on the services we provide.

Then there was Lynn Manto of Wurtsboro, who wanted to reduce the cost of health care and prescription medicines, particularly for seniors and working families. Do I even have to say that accomplishing that would help us all?

And who can possibly quibble with what Walden barber Jesse Almodovar said most of his customers want — end the gridlock in Washington, so we can do the things that folks like Barry, Solas and Manto want — create jobs, lower health care costs and expand opportunities for education?

Folks like these aren't selfish when they're asking what the country can do for them. They are the country — just like you or me. That's something we seem to forget these days, when so many issues divide our nation into us vs. them.

We forget that when we ask what our country can do for us, we're really asking what we can do for each other.